Google released a new Android SDK recently... sigh, so much to do and so little time. I'll try to get this ported onto my Zaurus shortly, because it's so damn cool. We'll manage I'm sure, just wait and see.

Has someone ripped the file system already, or even better, managed to get the kernel patched successfully?

Anyway, dust off the dev-tools, get the party hats and let's get it on!

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, my mom used to say. The thought of these wise words crossed my mind while standing in the Apple store on my trip to the united states. My mom meant different apples of course, I knew that, but these Apples were looking really juicy!!

So, to make a long story even longer, I decided later that week that I wanted an iPhone, so I went over to the Apple store again and bought myself one. Since I knew that the phone would be usable only with a two-year (US) contract with AT&T I did some investigation first just to make sure it would be possible to use it here in the Netherlands using my current carrier provider contract.

Browsing the Net I entered the great new world of OOB's (Out Of the Box), Jailbraking, Firmware downgrading, activation, unlocking and the likes. Impressive, I didn't had the time to read all the details at that time, but I knew enough, namely that it would be possible with some effort.

After buying and unpacking the device a few things were striking. Apple really knows how to create beautiful looking devices, but I've NEVER seen any device with so little instructions. Just a small paper saying you have to browse to a website for full instructions. After charging, the device just says "Connect to iTunes to activate". That's all, no further functioning whatsoever. This is weird!

Well, back in Holland I started to read all about unlocking the device. I was glad I did that first, because otherwise I would probably already upgraded the device to the last firmware, which would have made unlocking a real drag. Anyway, after following the excellent step by step guide from the hackint0sh guys the iPhone was usable as a luxurious iTouch after some time. No phone function, that was still a no-go area, since this hasn't been hacked by means of software until now as far as I know.

So I searched for hardware solutions, found a seller on eBay selling some Chinese SIM manipulation card, and took the risk of buying one. Two days later the SIM arrived, and following a simple online guide here my iPhone displays Vodafone as a provider now, and I'm the happy owner of a fully working iPhone. Not bad at all, and that within just a week time!

I guess I shouldn't complain, getting the opportunity to travel to the United States, expenses paid by the company I work for. I'll be at Micro$oft headquarters in Redmond for a complete brainwash. All existing and new technology will be shown there, so we know how to create enterprise solutions the M$ way.

Worst case scenario, I won't be able to speak the word "Linux" out loud, and I dump my Zaurus for a PocketPc. That's something to look forward to ;-)

So expect no updates nor mail reading for the oncoming week. I hope I'll be able to read a book, so next week there will be a different "Cover to cover" finally.

I've uploaded a new version of the Android image for the Zaurus SL-C3x00 models. It appeared that there weren't any package managers installed on default. Apart from that the wireless tools and the wpa-supplicant packages were missing as well, which makes it quite difficult to get online. Thanks for pointing that out speculatrix .

Included in this image are following additional packages on default:

update-modules

apt

ipkg

midnight commander

strace

altboot (I kind of like it)

wireless-tools

wpa-supplicant

pcmciautils

Apart from that, you'll find the key settings are applied as described by Android Zaurus. Last but not least I've added his Rotation applet. Great little utility!

The installation instructions are still the same, so I just updated the download links, which can be found in the menu item on the left.

Once again, have fun!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: It seems that there was an error in the gnu-tar version. Please re-download if you had problems

I've uploaded a kernel and minimal console image for the owners of a Zaurus SL-C7x0 and SL-C860. Since I don't have one of these devices myself (my SL-C750 died in a dreadful coffee experiment) I need volunteers to test this.

The same installation procedure applies for the SL-C1000, SL-C7x0 and SL-C860 devices. Instructions and can be found in the previous post or from the menu on the left.

It took much longer than I expected, but I finally did it. Android now works on my Zaurus SL-C1000 as well as on my SL-C3100!

Solution:

The SL-C1000 installer works slightly differently from the SL-C3x00 version. It uses Altboot to boot from a ext3 partitioned SD card. I tried using a the normal procedure where the root filesystem boots from internal flash, but this resulted in socket errors (Connection refused) on startup of Android, as described here. I simply don't know enough about the internal workings of Android as to understand why this is, so I searched for a workaround. Using Altboot is the workaround I came up with. Since Altboot makes it possible to boot from SD or CF apart from the usual internal flash memory, I partitioned and formatted a 1Gb SD card with a ext3 partition. Then I Flashed a slightly customized Poky kernel with Altboot included. The Android root filesystem is extracted to SD and the Zaurus boots from SD. From there it's a simple /start to start Android. That sounds too simple? Let's do a step by step then ;-)

Preparations:

Partition and format your SD card with an ext3 partition. The ext partition is important, if you want this to work. Don't use fat or fat32, use ext3, otherwise you'll regret it. I used sudo gparted on my Ubuntu desktop to make the partitioning and formatting easier. I also added a swap partition for some future Debian experiments, but this isn't necessary. For now you can safely skip the swap-partition step, just make sure you have a ext3 partition formatted (is the importance of the ext3 bit clear enough you think?).

You're asked if you want to flash the kernel, erase the flash, flash the root filesystem and finally the Android root filesystem. You can except all questions with the defaults (all yes). Only the last bit, the extraction of the Android root filesystem, doesn't work (yet). It doesn't seem to be possible to extract a tar archive to an ext3 formatted SD from the flashing environment (Permission denied). We need to do an extra step because of that unfortunately.

After flashing the Zaurus is rebooted automatically and Altboot is started. Choose option 1 so the Zaurus boots from internal flash memory. Login with root and extract the android root filesystem manually.

cd /media/cardtar -xzpf android-root.tar.gz

Depending on the speed of your SD card this can take a while.

Now, I found out the best way to handle now is doing a full reset (power off, battery remove, 5sec wait, replace battery and power on). The Zaurus boots, and when Altboot starts choose option 3, boot from SD. The first time you do this you'll be asked for some input. One is the administrator password for Altboot and the other is a question if you want to copy the home directory. Answer yes to this question!

Just to let you know I'll try to make Android installations available for the Zaurus SL-C7x0 and SL-C1000 shortly, so all of you can join the fun of having a cutting-edge (beta) product up and running in no-time.

Hopefully I will be able to test the SL-C1000 version tonight. More on this later.

It looks like we're being watched. As the news spreads itself across the Net, is seems like it's kind of special to have this thing running on real hardware already. And we Zaurus users are one of the happy few. Not bad if you think that the Zaurus is no longer manufactured and shamelessly abandoned by Sharp. You wonder what drives people in making these kind of decisions. Look at the impressive amount of distro's and applications and see what this mini-laptop is capable of. There is no machine like the Zaurus currently. So the responsible people at the Sharp headquarters still have a change to regret what they did and restart the assembly lines. Just my two cents worth. False hope I guess :-(

It seems like you never can do anything unnoticed here on the Net. The word that we as proud owners of a Zaurus are part of the happy few Android users is traveling fast. Thanks for mentioning my efforts guys, but most credits go to others, I just followed their instructions and created a hassle-free installation so others can give it a try as well.

I've added the installation instructions from my earlier post in the menu on the left. Installation won't get easier than this I think, and believe me, it's really worth giving it a try. So install it while it's still fresh :-)